


Shadows in the Flame

by DizzIzzi



Series: Fire Emblem IF: Fates Rewoven [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, No Smut, Old People being cute, Origin Story, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 17:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17791259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzIzzi/pseuds/DizzIzzi
Summary: Two old soldiers, the scars a reminders of their shared past.  Gunter is lost in the fire, Reina can relate.A little love goes a long way.





	Shadows in the Flame

**Author's Note:**

> This is a brief side story connected to my larger work Fire Emblem IF: Fates Rewoven. In this tale, made and released for Valentines Day 2019, I wanted to give a backstory to a pairing that isn't "canon" but should be. Gunter is the best dad a sheltered, damaged Princess could ask—he's amazing. Reina is, frankly, an underdeveloped character with an interesting perspective on life and combat. Really, I was inspired by a picture—I do not know who's sadly—telling the story of how both veterans got their distinctive scars. The last panel is of Corrin saying "I'm witnessing the courtship of demons." It's the reason I now 100% ship these two. Kudos to whomever drew such a beautiful "how I met your (mother)" scene!

  The man sat by the fire, wrapped in warm, woolen clothes. In his eyes a fire danced but whether it was the fire in front of him or some other, more distant fire was indiscernible. She had watched him for what felt like hours, burnt away by the flickering light of the campfire. For her the fire was a mystery—what drew his gaze she could only guess at—but she knew for a certainty that whatever played out before the wizened soldier’s mind was nothing good. Her options lay before her: She could intercede with the evening meal or some other trifle, but it would not work; she could sing, her voice was magical but not enough to reach him while so far lost in the fire; she could ignore him, like that would ever happen, but then nothing would be solved by it. So—as if gifted divine wisdom from the Dawn Dragon itself—she placed her warmth next to his in the chilly Hoshidan air.

  This man—one whom she had fought against on and off for years, decades even—did not even flinch at her touch, a bad sign. His pain radiated off him like the heat off the campfire and the scarred woman nuzzled her gentle head into the crook of his shoulder, like a lover snuggling close for warmth in their shared bed. Somehow, this brought her to the edge of tears. Of all the people to be affected by war she had known—by the chaos of death and the horrors of battle especially—seeing the creases on his fatherly face rent and twisted this small, important part of her heart. It was as if his amber eyes were begging the flame to consume him, immolate his mortal shell and send his soul into the afterlife, free of regret and responsibility—she knew that look all too well. The slow pulse of his heart beat in her ears, her own organ syncing with his until two became one—two old soldiers staring into the fire together on a cold night while the young went about their lives.

  In her mind their first meeting played out between the tongues lashing and swaying before her, shadows morphing into actors in the image of their halcyon days. So long, so long ago it had been—each fresh and youthful, full of energy and innocence. She remembered the scouting mission…

_The flight of birds against the pull and push of the thunderstorm flashing around them. Speckled hills no more than sketched outlines in the haze, no one had expected the weather to shift so suddenly mid-mission. Orders—someone yelling to skim lower—barely heard over the roar and the whistle of the air as, in perfect sequence, each knight dives to the proper altitude. Terrain takes shape, splashes of green dot the mud-brown landscape, angular lines of jagged outcroppings and sharp bowls defining themselves as they zip by. For all their keen eyes no one spots the patrol—a fan of armored horses trudging through the grime and dirt, an advanced party. Flash! Eyes sizzle briefly as bolts pierce the sweet embrace of earth—unable to see what awaited them. Shouts can’t carry far in such weather now, the storm grown too fierce, so the first ones go unheard. A lance like the herald of storms splits the lead in two, the beast’s pure white stained with death as both plummet down, down. Before she thinks her steed moves—instinctively knowing what is required of him—and training shunts thought aside._

_Almost equal numbers now, her squad descends in red and white upon the black and grey. Clash of steel on steel and blade on skin sicken the sky as it weeps the clearest of tears upon the slick ground. She recalls, like a still, her lance as it arcs up the brown-haired man’s face—his blood in such beautiful contrast to his once unmarred skin. She laughs—revels in the thrill of death and gore for the first time—the first blood taken is always the sweetest, more than honey and all the sweets in the sky. In her eyes are the gaze of a predator, a bird of prey seeing her meal so scrumptious below. She dives once more, eggs her bird on, on towards the foe in the wind and rain._  She winced, her folly and the reminder of pain worn upon her marred face.

  _Too steep, too steep to climb and avoid the jagged edge of the blade as it scissors its way up her arm to cleave skin from her face—it hurts so much. Up. Fly skyward towards safety, towards home. She needs to go home but her blood as it trickles down her face to touch her virgin lips sends shivers up her spine—ecstacy better than anything else could bring. For the first time in forever she is alive—alive with the beating of her breakneck heart and the flowing of her blood as it stains the water red. She moves in for another pass heedless of any tactic or doctrine, blood sang in her soul. Only her steed—that faithful Kinshi—prevented her from plummeting both to certain death, they would live. Anger, rushing to bleed her dry through the wicked slice traveling from upper arm to cheek to temple, begs her to jump and hurtle to the song of battle those Nohrian scouts promised. She cannot move—something keeps her locked in the stirrups no matter how much she yearns for release. Higher and higher the two fly, right into the storm, out of sight and lost._

_This was the real day of her birth—when the Bloody Knight tasted her first meal upon the murky plains far from her parent’s quaint little home._

  Reality focused again, bodily forced back into frame by inner will and discipline. Ghosts haunted the warmth of the bonfire and she shivered, afraid of the bones she swore were fueling it It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real… The tree of a man she had anchored herself to had awoken from his thousand year slumber, head turning like the wheel of ages to meet her dull blue hair. It smelled of flowers—of lavender and lilac and the sweet crunch of spring—and his nose took her in without orders from his brain. This kiss upon her crown fully broke the illusion cast on the veteran knight nestled in his side, her face met his mere inches from each other. Each knew, saw it in the other’s eyes, so no words were needed as lips closed around their partner’s in tender embrace. It is not so much lust, now, that bids them lock lips—it was simple inevitability.

  Both are broken in their own way, old soldiers missing parts and pieces of themselves, stripped from them over years of warfare. By the threads of Fate they have been linked—for better or worse—and this is the manifestation of such bonds. Like sailors begging for salvation amongst the jutting spears of the shore these two clung to each other. ”Any port in a storm,” some would say but it had become more than that, it was love—that most illusive and sought after of affections. On a level deeper than any other—than family butchered by a jealous king or parents grown distant with time—they completed the other, understood the other in ways their companions could not. Even without attraction the two would have been drawn together, like moths to the dancing shadows of flames.

  So the two sat, curled up around the fire as camp bustled around them in the nipping sting of early spring. No one dared to bother them—such sweetness was needed to contrast how grim the world seemed to be for everyone there—two knights from opposing sides brought together by the inescapable pull of Fate. They didn’t mind, it felt good to be in the other’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed what was most of my Valentine's Day! (Yaaay...)  
> Next up will be a little story about the family of Laslow, Selena, and Odin. Antics involving children will ensue.  
> Keep on snuggling you beautiful, beautiful people.
> 
> Your Author  
> -Izzi


End file.
